


I'll Take The Quiet Life

by gilligankane



Category: Glee
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-30
Updated: 2011-03-30
Packaged: 2017-11-17 07:37:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one has ever sung her a song.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Take The Quiet Life

When Berry and Quinn sing a duet about Finn, circling his chair in the center of the room like hungry turkey vultures, Santana snaps.   
  
It’s more of a slow pull until the edges fray really, because someone says “ _snap_ ” and she pictures Coach Sylvester roaring through the halls, trophy raised high over her head, poised to take down whoever stands in her way.  
  
But this feeling in her heart isn’t like a rubber band finally breaking in half, biting at her fingers as it comes apart. If anything, it feels like this thread comes unraveled slowly, without resistance, unthreading and swinging limply, unattached. It’s like that slow rush of cold that happens when she drinks a cool bottle of water on a really hot day: she can feel it sliding down her throat and into her chest, spreading through her body until it settles in the pit of her stomach.   
  
It lingers there, pinning her to her seat as Berry and Quinn finish and Finn ambles out back to the risers awkwardly. It presses down as Puck sings another socially-inappropriate song to Lauren, strumming his guitar and giving her that stroke-victim smile. It lurches up when Artie sings something, his gaze swinging between Brittany and Tina. She fights to keep it down as Sam sings a song in something that sounds like the crap Orlando Bloom was speaking the one time she’d given in and watched “Lord of the Rings” with him, staring at Quinn.  
  
And when Mercedes sings some song about having friends like some stupid Sesame Street special about equality, pointing at pretty much everyone in the room but Santana, that feeling just gives up. It slides back down her throat and stops fighting as realization dawns. Chang dances in circles and squares and octagons for Tina and Santana sinks lower into her seat, giving up and praying that the floor will swallow her right where she is.  
  
No one has ever sung her a song.   
  
She’s clawed her way into songs, started fights after songs, sung about messing people up and picked her way through songs, but it’s always been her singing. It’s always been Santana singing to herself – in the mirror, in her car, in the choir room as Puck and Sam and Finn all look at other girls.  
  
No one has ever sung her a song.  
  
Brittany got close once, but Santana was mostly singing that song to Brittany anyway, so she doesn’t count it. It doesn’t count for too many reasons – like she cried during it like a little girl and Berry tried to take her moment away from her and turn it into something Santana wasn’t sure it was – but at night, when she’s holding her pillow close to her chest and trying not to take deep breaths, she tells herself that it doesn’t count because Santana did most of the singing. Brittany just sat there, swaying lightly, staring at her and that sure as hell doesn’t count.  
  
It’s still the closest she’ll get with the way everything seems to be unraveling.   
  
She sinks into her seat and stays there as Mr. Schuester serenades Ms. Holliday and while she’s sure that teachers can’t actually do what Mr. Schue is doing in front of students, that’s another song someone won’t sing to Santana. That’s another song someone won’t direct at her, another song someone won’t ask her to dance to.   
  
It’s another song on a long list of songs that now don’t mean anything to her.  
  
It’s another song on a long list of songs that she pretends she doesn’t want to hear again.  
  
Mr. Schue calls glee to an end, smiling so wide that Santana is sure his face is going to split in half. She pictures it happening, pictures Coach Sylvester’s happiness if it did but even that doesn’t give her the strength to lift out of her seat. If anything, it pushes her down harder – without Mr. Schue, there’d be no New Directions and without New Directions, Santana would melt into the student body and never come out again.  
  
She gets up anyway, her feet dragging behind her with each step she takes towards the door. She hangs back as everyone files out in front of her, shies away from Ms. Holliday’s hand at her back and sidesteps Tina and Chang just outside the doorway as Tina’s hand disappears under Chang’s shirt.  
  
Her car keys move in her bag, metal on metal – the rhythm of something like freedom. Her feet, still sluggish and heavy like everything else in her life, turn away from science or math or whatever class she has where Brittany keeps trying to sit next to her, and move towards the parking lot, kicking open the double doors. She doesn’t wince at the sunshine or the sharp blast of cold air. Lima in April is cruel and she’s not wearing a jacket but she hardly feels anything but the breaking ache somewhere between her heart and her stomach, nestled in her ribs. It doesn’t move as she finds her car and gets in, shutting the door after her, the silence deafening. The car turns over smoothly, the engine humming like a whisper, beating a pulse that sounds like a melody.  
  
In the cocoon of her car, she eyes the radio dial. Her hand shakes as she reaches for it, but her arm gets heavy and she pulls back, suddenly exhausted and content with the way the engine is lulling the ache, tempering it if only for a moment. She drops her head, forehead resting against the steering wheel and takes a deep breath before putting the car in gear and pulling out of the parking lot, away from school and tests and Brittany trying to get her attention in between classes.  
  
She drives home in silence, the radio untouched, afraid that if she turns it on, she’ll hear another song she’ll never sing to anyone, afraid she’ll hear another song nobody will ever sing to her.  
  
In the silence of her car, she can finally breathe.


End file.
